Will Joe Biden be the 2020 Democratic nominee?

NEW DELHI — The bloody outcome of the hostage crisis in Beslan, North Ossetia, has united not only Russia but the entire free world in grief. … The horrific tragedy should leave no doubts — even among “human rights” do-gooders — about the savage nature of Chechnya’s so-called “war of independence.”

Its wagers, like their atavistic kin elsewhere, proved the enemies of civilization the day they made bloodletting a rite of passage toward perverted ends. … When children are not merely caught in crossfire, when they are coldly and consciously made to go as lambs to slaughter, it is an outrage against humanity. … In the past few years, Russia has suffered as much as India in terms of loss of life owing to terrorist depredations.

… Chechen “separatism” has a Kashmiri cousin. Both secessionist movements stand hijacked by foreign elements. The latter have been spreading their tentacles via co-option of localized strife, in depraved pursuit of “world domination” through regional destabilization. Nine ultras liquidated in Beslan were West Asian.

Corriere della Sera

Women kidnapped in Iraq

MILAN, Italy — Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, two Italian women not yet in their 30s, are the first Western women that have been kidnapped in Iraq. They are not in Baghdad by chance, nor for money, nor for adventure, but to bring concrete aid to a tormented population.

All of this was not enough to save them from being kidnapped. One would imagine that the terrorists knew it, and for this reason they seized them. To demonstrate that they do not discriminate. That we are the enemy, all of us, pacifists or interventionists does not matter, because theirs is a total war against the West.

As with all terrorists, including those that kidnapped these women and threaten their young lives, it is necessary to isolate them … and dissolve the ambiguity toward a fundamentalist terrorism … that must be fought with the same determination whoever the victim may be.

Egyptian Gazette

Iraq’s capture of al-Douri:

CAIRO — The U.S.-backed interim Iraqi government hoped the capture of Saddam Hussein’s second in command would be a feather in its cap. But the Iraqi government ended up with egg all over its face, calling into question their cohesion and credibility. First they said they had apprehended Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. Then they said they hadn’t. …

[Al-Douri’s] detention would not have been more timely. It would have boosted the morale of the U.S. and Iraqi forces, proving that they are moving toward re-establishing security in post-Saddam Iraq. Washington has long blamed al-Douri for orchestrating attacks against its troops. His arrest, therefore, would have deprived the anti-U.S. insurgents of a major mastermind.

The problem is that early announcements that al-Douri was in Iraqi hands after a battle in Tikrit have been withdrawn. It may turn out to have been an illusion by the U.S. satraps in Baghdad.

Chosun Ilbo

The reputed nuclear bid

SEOUL — Following the revelation that the Korea Atomic Energy Research conducted experiments to enrich uranium four years ago, some foreign press agencies have raised suspicions that Korea attempted to develop nuclear weapons.

Many countries possess the technology to concentrate radioactive isotope material using lasers. The KAER also did the experiment to separate materials for medical purposes, but found out it was uneconomical and suspended the experiment.

The research team said that just before dismantling the equipment … it experimented out of an investigative mind to see whether it was possible to enrich uranium using lasers.

It requires 15 kilograms of uranium to build nuclear weapons, but the amount of enriched uranium produced in the KAER experiment was only 0.2 kilograms.